


Never Alone

by Kellie_116



Series: 31 Days of Fic 2018 [4]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 22:05:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16841311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kellie_116/pseuds/Kellie_116
Summary: Every day of December, I'll be posting a song-inspired one-shot of a different Penelope Garcia pairing! Check out myplaylistfor all the songs!





	Never Alone

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by "Someone to Fall Back On" by Jason Robert Brown

She’d tried to avoid him forever.

Okay, that may not be entirely accurate, but she certainly hadn’t spent any more time with him than strictly necessary after all that had happened.

His kids were still her godsons, though, and she didn’t want to neglect her godmotherly duties, and eventually, seeing Henry and Michael was going to unavoidably mean seeing Will again, which absolutely terrified her.

She wasn’t proud to admit it, but she’d even actively avoided him at the funeral. She’d squeezed into that one black dress that she only wore when Something Horrible had happened, and she’d searched and searched until she finally found her plainest pair of dark-rimmed glasses, and she’d done everything in her power to avoid making eye contact with the man whose wife she’d killed.

_It wasn’t your fault_ , they all kept telling her, _No one could have known he’d be there_ , over and over and over again, almost like a prayer, as if they held out foolish hope that someday she’d believe them.

She would’ve rather faced Will, though, than Mrs. Jareau. She’d stumbled over her words and her feet as she tried in vain to find something appropriate to say to this poor woman, lost in a world without either of her daughters and clinging to Henry and Michael’s hands as if they, too, would slip away the moment she let go.

Appropriate had never been Penelope’s strong suit, and it was by the sheer grace of God that Reid had come up beside her, placed a reassuring hand on the small of her back, and taken over comforting Sandy.

With Spencer doing all the talking, she had found herself free to refocus all of her energies on effectively avoiding William Lamontagne.

Eventually, though, the visitation and the funeral and the director-mandated time off had passed and she, along with the rest of the BAU, had found herself thrown violently back into the real world, trying to find a new normal in a world without Jennifer Jareau. It was not an easy task.

She’d done everything she could think of to spend time with Henry and Michael without facing Will. The boys were easier; when they looked her in the eyes and told her they loved her, she believed them. She didn’t find herself wondering if they’d ever forgive her for killing their mother the way she wondered if she’d ever forgive herself. There was no hidden resentment behind their tragically familiar blue eyes. They were just happy to see her, to be out of a house heavy with mourning – a mourning Penelope just knew was fueled by shallowly-hidden resentment towards her. _It was all her fault._

But she’d been dropping them off at home when day, walking them to the door like she always did to make sure they got inside okay, when Will had poked his stubbly, bag-eyed face around the corner and invited her in for coffee. She’d known she had to say yes; for all she could tell, it was the first time he’d reached out to another adult human being in months.

Having coffee with Will had not been quite what she’d expected. She’d been bracing herself in the time it took to walk from the front door to the kitchen table to face Will’s pain and anger – but mostly, he’d just been lonely. Lonely, and very, very tired.

Taking care of two boys alone was a lot of work, he’d explained with a soft laugh. Truth be told, he’d done a lot more laughing during their coffee together than she’d been counting on, and, although she’d never paid it much attention before, he had a nice laugh. Gentle, but not timid, like he knew who he was and what he believed in. _Not many men like that anymore_ , she’d mused.

They’d sat there having coffee for much longer than either had intended, talking about nothing and everything until the sun was gone from the sky and their coffee was cold in their cups. Penelope had truthfully been ashamed at herself for enjoying herself so much – it had been less than a year since this man lost his wife, one of her closest friends – and so she had been completely caught off-guard when he’d asked to cook her dinner the next week.

“Please,” he’d drawled, “The boys are stayin’ with Spencer for the night and you’d honestly be doing me a favor. They don’t like gumbo – blasphemy, I know,” he laughed, “And I’ve been dyin’ to make some, but the recipe is too much for just me.”

She’d hesitated for a long moment – this was JJ’s husband! – but when she saw the look in his eyes she’d known she couldn’t turn him down. The man was desperate for a friend, someone to talk to in front of plates of gumbo or cups of long-cold coffee, and so she’d told herself it was the least she could do for JJ now to keep her husband from feeling so alone.

Before she knew it, though, one dinner had turned into four, and dinners had turned into Saturday lunches with the boys, and by the time the second year passed he wasn’t just JJ’s husband anymore. She’d never known Will well before Jennifer passed, she was embarrassed to admit; he’d come into JJ’s life so suddenly and always been a little distant. Now, though, in spite of everything that had happened, he’d become one of her closest friends. The time they spent together was precious to her, and she found herself lying awake at night praying JJ would forgive her for the way she was beginning to think about Will.

She’d been sure, though, absolutely certain, that she’d never have to worry about the reality of her most shameful daydreams. _Jennifer was the love of his life_ , she’d told herself time and time again, and though she’d never known such a love herself, she’d been positive that he’d never move on, least of all with someone so bold, so quirky, so different from his wife.

So the night that she found herself coming up for air from a kiss she’d felt all the way to her bones, staring into the eyes of a man with whom she’d not so long ago been terrified to have a cup of coffee, she was shell-shocked. He wasn’t what she’d planned on, and she was sure she was never what he expected, yet here they were, their faces inches apart on the front steps of her apartment building.

“Will,” she whispered, and he tucked a blonde curl behind her ear as their hot breaths mingled in the cold November air. “Are you sure about this? I mean, JJ-“

“JJ’s gone,” he reminded her, and she was struck by his quiet matter-of-factness. “She wouldn’t want either of us to be alone, Pen.”

She swallowed hard, took a moment to ask the heavens to forgive her if she was sinning tonight, and ran her thumb gently across the rough skin of his face as she leaned in closer and said against his lips, “You’ll never be alone.”


End file.
